Existing broadcast technologies, such as Cell Broadcast, Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service (“MBMS”), and video broadcast, (e.g., Digital Video broadcast—Handheld (“DVB-H”), and MediaFLO), have been proposed to support emergency alert notification(s) to wireless subscribers. A problem with such broadcast technologies is that the end user does not know when an emergency alert is being broadcast, and thus does not know that he or she needs to tune to an appropriate broadcast channel for the emergency alert information.
While it has been proposed to continuously monitor the wireless subscriber's handset to determine if an emergency alert is being broadcast, continuous monitoring by the wireless subscriber's handset of the various broadcast technologies to determine if an emergency alert is being issued will likely have a major impact on the handset battery life depending upon which broadcast technology/technologies are being continuously monitored (e.g., Cell Broadcast). With current battery life limits, the end user experience would be impacted due to reduced handset battery life. Continuous monitoring also can impact network bandwidth unnecessarily.